Custom Map

All posts tagged Custom Map

If you’re waiting – like me – for your Nihon sponsored counter sheets to arrive, here’s something related to the Nihon Invasion but without the custom counters. Back in the day, Keith Johnson’s created a scenario called “The Nihon Invasion of San Francisco” featuring an amazing USGS map. [Remember – this was before Google Maps!] I printed a colour copy on an 11×17 sheet and had it laminated, wrote this scenario, then had great fun pushing little paper chits around.

I wonder how easy it would be to get a large-format version printed today…

It is 2101 and the Combine has fallen. The Nihon Empire avidly monitored its collapse, and now sets its eyes on invasion. Spies and agents loyal to Nihon have infiltrated positions along the west coast, reporting military intelligence back to the Heavenly Empire.

But there is a problem.

A Nihon defector, a high-ranking spy, has made contact with San Franciscan authorities. He possesses detailed knowledge of the planned invasion; information which would jeopardize the entire North American operation if revealed. It is a desperate situation for Nihon; drastic measures are called for. It is time to contact the sleeper agent…

…An old program hidden deep within a computer AI has been activated; a hidden voice issues new commands to an OGRE. Turning south from its previously assigned mission, it acquires a new target. Its goal is to reach the turncoat before he reveals Nihon’s invasion plans.

When OGRE sentience first emerged in 2087, it posed a challenge to Combine cyberneticists. These new self-aware OGREs generally outperformed their non-sentient brethren on the battlefield; it was almost two years, however, before the phenomenon of AI “emergence” was understood well enough to design for. In the interim, it was discovered that AI sentience could be “induced” under conditions of extreme stress.

Several approaches were tried, but the most successful was to subject a “newborn” AI to a series of gruelling simulations, hoping to prod it into self-awareness. Callous programmers developed cruel scenarios and ran AIs repeatedly through them. Not suprisingly, many of the minds which achieved sentience under such conditions exhibited mental instability. Most of these dangerously unbalanced AIs were weeded out before entering service, but more than one maladapted mind slipped through.

The South American campaign has not been going well for the Combine. Nova Brasilia, backed by Paneuropean cybertanks, has regained much of the Amazon Combat Zone. After the Combine regional HQ was crushed beneath a Doppelsoldner, a general retreat was finally ordered. Many of the senior officers managed to escape in hovertrucks, and, along with a rag-tag escort of GEVs, are attempting to flee northward to Columbia. The swiftest route takes them through a pass in the badlands. Unfortunately for the Combine remnants, their path is blocked by waiting Paneuropean forces.